House Tiny home is stitched using six-strand embroidery floss separated into two-strand sections. Roof is made from a dark blue wool felt and four colors of seed beads. Cell Phone Sleeve Inexpensive synthetic yarn worked into the stiff canvas I purchased from a thrift store. One half is a simple bargello pattern and the other side a free-form geode style design with the same gradient. Hand wound tiny pom poms sewn to the top serve as a fluffy dirt blocker and closure. Lining is soft, kitteny fleece that happens to function as a great screen cleaner. Hand-sewn throughout. Creatures Aluminum foil ball formed on the end of thick aluminum wire serves as a base for white sculpey clay. The only tools used were a toothpick and metal nail file. Once baked and cooled, painted with acrylic paint. I can thank my Dark Crystal / Labyrith / Mirrormask movie marathon for inspiring these little wrinkly faces. Not sure what I'm going to do for bodies yet, but they will be worm-like. Some useful advice from my mom was to make a nub at the bottom of doll heads to aid attaching to a body. Unfortunately her helpful sketch came to me a little late.
Thankfully it was before I made a single stitch that I realized how much I hated my original color scheme. I matched my threads to the pattern, and what did I see? Beige, brown, tan, white. As I thought about how I want my project to look and what I like to wear, it became clear that I really needed to amp up the colors if it was going to match my aesthetic. The point is to remain flexible with your projects, especially when it is an original design. I zoomed over to my computer, switched up the colors a bit, and now I have a Technicolor Lieutenant Commander. I realize he is very green. However, as you will see from my WIP photos I am not actually making Lt. Commander Kermit. Data's android face is more of a milky yellow, and I am using artistic license by making greens, blues and teals the shadow tones. Perhaps this is alluding to his time with the Borg? Who knows. After I stitched the brown shadow line in the center of his mouth I realized I really should have added a backing, also known as a stabilizer. I solved this problem by basting on a black backing fabric of cotton/polyester blend. It has no stretch and is pre-shrunk. Pushing and pulling the needle through these fabrics is shockingly difficult, which is where the pliers come in! Most of the time I am able to stitch along without a problem, holding the needle with my thumb and pointer finger of my right hand. However, strain this area, and you are messing with the muscles and tendons in your forearm which can be incredibly painful, and can lead to carpal tunnel. Using the pliers to pull the needle out does slow my work a bit, but really makes a difference in tough spots. So at this point I wanted to add the J&P Coats to DMC colors conversion, for anyone who wanted to copy my color scheme... and learned the floss I have been using may be a knockoff! I added a few paragraphs to my Needlepoint Intro post going into it. Fact is, for me it makes little difference because I prefer to eyeball the colors until it "feels" right. And for anyone who wanted to copy this, I encourage them to do the same. If there is ever a demand for it, I will take my piece to the yarn shop I frequent and manually match up my colors to DMC, but until then, too bad. Don't know how to stitch? My Needlepoint Intro may help!
Since I learned needlepoint I have been waiting to make myself a large Data for the front of a garment, combining my passions for Star Trek and needlecraft. Though due to an overwhelming sense of frugality it took me a while to assemble all of the pieces for this project: 1. Suitable foundation garment. I found this great hoodie for $3.50! 2. Waste canvas. This allows me to rely on the grid used for needlepoint, and when finished the grid threads pull out. Bought it on Ebay. 3. Pattern. I made the pattern myself using a photo from Memory Alpha. In Gimp I cleaned up the image, simplified it, adjusted the colors, pixelated it, and added the guiding grid lines.
I can say from the start I will not be following the pattern I made exactly, but it will be an indispensable guide, especially for the placement of his facial features. I want it to resemble the character, after all.
Before finally getting stitching, all I need to do is confirm I have enough embroidery floss in the proper gradient range to ensure I don't run out halfway through with nowhere to turn. I only discovered needlepoint two years ago when I found the book "Glorious Interiors" by Kaffe Fassett for 25 cents. Specifically I fell in love with an armchair for which he had stitched a cover boasting a large sectioned cantaloupe, lettuces and cabbages, all floating on an iridescent blue background. And though I didn't really want to copy his technicolor-countryside motifs, I could see needlepoint for the versatile and exciting craft it is. |
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